Advertisements are everywhere. But no matter how much people hate ads on the internet, they're here to stay. And that is the only part without the irony.
AdBlock Plus is the maker of the plugins that block advertisements on the web for its users. To many publishers and advertisers, the products that came from it have caused considerable amount of damage, especially to those that practice free online content business model.
As its name suggests, it's obvious if it "hates" ads. But Eyeo, the German owners of Adblock Plus, who is supposed to be against advertising, aren't really opposing them. Instead, they're only against bad advertising which intrude users' privacy and their experience on the web.
On one side of the internet, it sees users of the web that wants information from websites but they dislike ads. On the other side, there are many websites wouldn't be able to operate without showing ads. AdBlock Plus which is supposed block ads, now wants to take the middle path: it wants users only see good ads, and websites can still show ads.
So now, instead of AdBlock Plus stripping all ads from the internet forever, it is hoping to replace the bad ads with good ads which are the ones that are smaller, subtler, and theoretically much less annoying.
Here, AdBlock Plus is like developing its own DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder).
The attempt started in 2011 when the company introduced an Acceptable Ads policy which allows users to whitelist whichever adverts they think aren't showing intrusive ads. The company takes this a step further by creating Acceptable Ads Platform.
It is essentially a moderated advertising platform which will only show "acceptable" ads to ad-blocking users.
In the advertisement marketplace hosted by AdBlock Plus, website owners and operators can pick out "acceptable" ads and place their tags on their web pages to replace the bad ads. So when an Adblock Plus users visit their page, they'll only see the previously selected "acceptable" ads and not the normal ones.
According to Eyeo's CEO and AdBlock Plus co-founder Till Faida:
Ben Williams, operations and communications director for Adblock Plus, said that this new Acceptable Ads initiative is supposed to be a decent "compromise between users and advertisers."
AdBlock Plus in selling its own ads, is seen as an irony. The company has built a reputation to an extent that it is seen as one of the largest enemies of online ads. With its products, users can block ads, clean up clunky website interfaces, and preventing websites from tracking them.
By having its own ad-network, it is like digging a hole under the solid foundation it is on: the attempt can severely damage the reputation it has built for so long.
But AdBlock Plus is already having a massive community. With the many users it is having, it's able to revive ads in its own way.
For all those work, AdBlock Plus will certainly get something In return. The business model enables Eyeo to earn from publishers because AdBlock Plus benefits directly from its products by setting up a marketplace where ads are chosen by its community.